Clive Woodward had become England coach and had got rid of the old guard, so guys like Rodber who’d had fantastic careers had fallen into the A-team on their way down. Rodber would bounce back and be in contention for the 1999 World Cup, but at that moment he was being tested by Woodward to see if he had what England needed. It was such an honour to run out alongside him and the other A-team players. I spent the whole time listening carefully and learning. I was like a sponge trying to soak up every bit of information and to benefit from everything I was hearing from these guys who’d been there and done it. Looking back, the selection for England A was a crucial moment in my life, and a big break for me because it would mark the start of my career really taking off.
The second A-game was at Welford Road, home of Leicester and their fortress when it came to club rugby. It was great to go there and not be booed and jeered by them all. It was here that I ended up getting the nickname ‘Raging Bull’. The name came about because Mark Allen, the New Zealand prop, was known as the bull, and apparently when he played at home everyone made the noise of a bull and would shout, ‘The bull’s in the farmyard!’ when he ran out. In order to counteract that, Clive Woodward said, ‘Well, we’ve got a raging bull here, his name’s Phil Vickery.’ Because I was brought up on a farm, the guys loved that name for me, and it stuck. There were obviously lots of farmyard references from my teammates and much laughter as they all took to calling me by my new name. But I grew to like being called Raging Bull and I’ve even called my range of clothing after it, and this book!
Welford Road was an amazing place to play because we had all this support. It’s not a great place to go when you’re playing against Leicester, because obviously you have very little support from the crowd, but I do remember how great it was when we went there with England and had them all on our side.
There’s no doubt that my stock rose as a result of playing for England A and I learnt something that I’d never realised before - that life is very competitive when you rise through the ranks. Suddenly I was the person to beat, the person that other props wanted to do better than in matches because I was the young, up-and-coming England prop. I remember playing Bath soon after the England A game and John Mallett was chasing me around, and working hard to look better than me. I knew I’d have to up my game. I felt I had to prove myself every time I played. People were looking at me as the guy knocking on the England door, not as the friendly, slightly tubby farmer who’d come on up from Cornwall. I was being taken seriously by other people and I had to start taking myself seriously. Well, not too seriously, because I’d never do that, just more seriously than I had done up until that point.
After the fantastic experience of playing for England A at Welford Road, it was back to Gloucester with a series of tough matches one after another. The standard of rugby being played in clubs had already begun to improve since the arrival of professionalism. Defences were harder to penetrate and players were starting to get fitter. The game was tougher than ever.
I remember playing in a particularly hard-fought match against Leicester at Kingsholm. Back then they had Richard Cockerill, Martin Johnson, Neil Back and a plethora of international players in their side. They had a particularly good pack so I knew I would have my work cut out. In this match in early February I remember the scrum going down badly, and the referee telling us to stand up. As I did so, Graham Rowntree gave me an uppercut right into the side of my jaw. Bloody hell it hurt. I still remember the pain today. I managed to get through the rest of the match and woke up to a very sore jaw the next morning. I decided that next time I saw Graham Rowntree he’d pay for that punch.
A couple of days later, I was at home one afternoon when I had a call from John Fidler. He told me that the England coach had been on the phone and wanted me to go to the Petersham Hotel in Richmond to join the international rugby team. ‘They want you to play for England,’ he said. ‘You’ve done it, son. Well done!’
I suppose I should report that the world spun on its axis as soon as John said those words, but the truth is that I was so worried about how on earth to get to this hotel in London that I didn’t have time to get excited about my selection for the national side. I know that for most people winning an international cap would be a most special moment in their lives, so I wish I could describe it as being thrilling and exciting but, genuinely, the only thing going through my mind was … London? I don’t want to drive to London. How on earth will I get there? Where is London? Which motorway do I take? The M3? Where’s that?
I asked John where I had to go and he told me to head to south-west London. Christ, where was that? I was given a map and told which motorways to take, and I was sent on my way.
Eventually, I got there. I arrived at this magnificent old hotel called the Petersham, grabbed my bag from the boot of the car and walked into the marble reception area. I didn’t know where to go, who to ask for or what to do. I hovered around, wondering who to approach when I saw Lawrence Dallaglio striding across the reception area towards me, and putting his hand out to shake mine. He welcomed me to the England hotel and he probably, to this day, has no idea how much that meant to me. I’d driven to a place I was unfamiliar with, late at night, to meet the best team of players in England, and to join them to play a level of rugby I wasn’t familiar with. That friendly gesture from Lawrence made me feel welcome. It was a great thing to do.
Things didn’t stay all that great though because when I got up to the room, still nursing my face from the punch I had received from Graham Rowntree when we had met across the scrum the previous Saturday, I discovered my room-mate was… the same bloody Rowntree! I looked at him, this bloke who had given me a cheap punch in the face, and thought, This is the last person in the world that I want to spend time with. Seriously, though, Rowntree is a brilliant bloke and he was a great team-mate. He was a good room-mate too, but it was funny to see him standing there, welcoming me to my room, while I was still sporting the bruises he’d given me the last time I’d seen him.
It was difficult to turn up at the England team hotel, and mix straight in with this group of players who’d been together for a while, especially since none of them were from Gloucester, but what helped was the feeling of camaraderie from the other players. It had taken me just thirty-four first-team games for Gloucester before I was asked to join the England squad and my first match in England colours happened just eighty-one days after my England A début, so there was a great deal of talk about me, a lot of interviews to give, and press attention to cope with. I didn’t even know whether I would be in the team to play France, or whether I’d just been brought in for cover at training.
I got through my first evening in the team hotel, and went out training with the players the next day. Bloody hell. I’ve always been a physical bloke, and I’d been playing a decent standard of rugby at Gloucester, and for England A, for a while, so I was fit and used to very hard rugby training, but - blimey - nothing like that! I knew that it would be a step up when I was called into the international squad, but it was rugby training on a whole different level. I just wasn’t prepared for it and, I’ll be honest, I almost died in the first scrummaging session. No, really, I did almost die. It was so bloody cold and we did so many scrums. Time and time again we were forced to reset the scrum and replay the moves. I couldn’t believe what was going on. I was 23 stone of bright red beetroot for about a week afterwards. I think it took me about a year to get over that session. The reality of international rugby hit me like a sledgehammer, leaving me determined to lose weight, sharpen up and get properly fit to compete in this environment. It’s interesting to look back now … when I first turned up for that England training session I was 130kg; by the next Five Nations I was 115kg!
Playing for England was going to be hard. I’d had a taste of how hard it would be when I’d been selected to play for England A, so I was under no illusions. When you played for England at the time you came up against the Leicester mafia and as a lone guy from Gloucester I felt outnumbered from the start, but I always felt that if I worked hard my work would be rewarded. The